Researchers at the University of the West of England have snagged a grant to fund the building of a whole new type of
robot -- a non-silicon, biological plasmobot, built using plasmodium, a vegetative type of slime
mold. The mold, which is commonly found living in forests and gardens, is, according to researcher Andy Adamatzky, a "naturally occurring substance with its own built in intelligence," which is capable of carrying out complex tasks, like figuring out the shortest path between two points -- all on its own. The aim for the plasmobot will be for it to sense objects, span them in the shortest way possible, and carry tiny objects along pre-determined routes, controlled by light and electromagnetic fields. The plasmobot should also be capable of complex "number crunching power," enabled by parallel inputs and outputs. Long-term uses could include using the bots within the human body to deliver drugs to specific targets. Though much of this is still purely theoretical (and extremely complicated), we look forward to the day when we're all covered in mold, don't you?
posted August 31st 2009 4:18PM
But what if the real robots and the mold robots form an alliance?
We're already doomed, yo.
Lysol?
So this is how the Borg come into being.
We're fucked- that's "what if..."
I think we are taking this a little lightly...
Great, a robot you can be alergic to...
Good thing it's being designed in England - you know it will never work.
The English economy is certainly working -- especially in comparison to the economic crisis of the United States.
The mold will be Socialist, it's obvious.
Long Live the Mold Queen!
"...you know it will never work" isn't entirely accurate. It will likely work, but it will constantly leak and have a persistently illuminated "service engine soon" light. That's why there are no British refrigerators...it's impossible to get them to leak oil.
It's genuine socialist English mould - and that's with a 'u'...
@Kent Apple's chief designer for the past decade has been English you condescending ass.
L.Rawlins,
Good thing he's being micromanaged by an AMERICAN then. It also means Apple is doomed after Jobs ends his stint there.
The MG, the Comet airliner, Beagle 2, Yep - long string of engineering successes there. Britian is very inventive in finding new ways for engineering to fail. Culturally, you seem to be falling into a demographic and ideological pit that will make you indistinguishable from France in a generation. In two generations, if not before, you'll both be speaking Arabic.
I actually love England a great deal, and this is why it's so damn offensive to me to see what you've done to yourselves. "Britons will never be slaves" apparently had an expiration date along with the rest of Rule Britannia. Orwell-cams and share-cropping your paychecks to the state today, Sharia tomorrow.
England will be be remembered as a beautiful tragic suicide - more's the pity.
@Kent
Well said on the above response actually... ballsy, but well said...
What's all this @kent shit? This isn't Twitter...
By the way, Kent betrays his lack of international knowledge when he interchanges England and Britain - as though they were the same thing.
@Kent
Care to google Brunel, Baggage or Watt? Britain built the entire world you tool.
...and also kent what's all this nonsense about CCTV leading to sharia law? Do you even know what sharia law is? As for "the state", things like the NHS define how brilliant a place the UK is to be in. If you don't like it then don't come here, or if you already are (unlikely...) vote for something else.
i welcome our new biological robot masters
I was just thinking..
I'm going to be SO dissapointed, if someone hasn't said something about biological, or gooey masters..
Keep up the awesome.
That's just what we need. Haven't these jerks heard of the Replicators?
Ewww...
Maybe I can shove some of this tech up my nose to command my snot and relieve my cold.
Pretty sure that's not how colds work.
I knew Skynet was a cheesy idea from the start!
...and I KNOW that was cheesy :p
In Soviet Russia, mold will make robots out of scientists.
This could be bad... I always seem to have something in my fridge with a mold colony going to town- last thing I need is for it to be intelligent.
Bio-Bots are a cool idea, but scary when you think about it. If you don't think so, I suggest giving "Prey" by the late Michael Crichton a read. Might change your idea on the matter.
@ kent
yeah, just like the jet engine, the rocket engine, the computer and the USA.
Plasmodium is not a mold, it's a parasite...have you ever heard about malaria?
First step Mold. Next step Tomatoes...Until the Tomato revolution that is!
@hineiko
they are not using plasmodium, they are using slime moulds. which interestingly enough also are'nt mould.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmodium_(slime_mold)
All this has happened before, and all this will happen again...
Didn't they see "The Blob"?
sounds interesting
Plasmodium is not mold and causes malaria. Slime mold is not a real mold because its not a fungus. WTF is this article talking about exactly?
Come on now..... Doesn't anyone read anymore? Michael Crichton... He wrote this book called "Prey" .... Read it.
UWE!
Just graduated from this university.
All hail the Bristol Robotics Lab...
Mario Brothers movie, anyone?
Actually this gives me an idea for a Science Fiction story.
AFTER THE DEMISE OF MAN:
Two species battle it out to see who will be the dominate species on earth. The green slime or the gray goo. Who will prevail? Will one exterminate the other? Or will they seek peace at some point in time as prophecy foretold by the ancient, older then time Easter egg found in the Android OS source code? Only the future will tell... (And two hundred years latter in the sequel there descendants make a movie of the civil war titled the "The Green and the Gray")